SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
NVIDIA Transitioning To Official, Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Driver
The day has finally come: NVIDIA is publishing their Linux GPU kernel modules as open-source! To much excitement and a sign of the times, the embargo has just expired on this super-exciting milestone that many of us have been hoping to see for many years. Over the past two decades NVIDIA has offered great Linux driver support with their proprietary driver stack, but with the success of AMD's open-source driver effort going on for more than a decade, many have been calling for NVIDIA to open up their drivers. Their user-space software is remaining closed-source but as of today they have formally opened up their Linux GPU kernel modules and will be maintaining it moving forward. Here's the scoop on this landmark open-source decision at NVIDIA.
Many have been wondering in recent years what sort of NVIDIA open-source play the company has been working on... Going back to the end of 2019 have been signals of some sort of open-source driver effort and various rumblings have continued since that point. Last month I also pointed out a new open-source kernel driver appearing as part of the NVIDIA Tegra sources. Well, now the embargo has just expired and the lid can be lifted - NVIDIA is providing a fully open-source kernel driver solution for their graphics offerings. This isn't limited to just Tegra or so but spans not only their desktop graphics but is already production-ready for data center GPU usage.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by higuita on Friday May 13 2022, @02:24PM (1 child)
whatever nvidia and nvidia fans say, the optimus support is a joke... it can work, but is a pain... and if you change ANYTHING, it will fail and lock your computer
Maybe this open source drive can improve it, but without the user space open too, i really do not believe it
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday May 13 2022, @03:28PM
And that's assuming you can even make it work in the first place.
When I was setting up linux on my gigabyte laptop, I found out the hard way that there are actually multiple ways in which Optimus can be implemented at the hardware level. The windows drivers supports them all. The linux driver supports one, and that isn't the one gigabyte used, so my only choice was to do the switch hardware and restart my X session.
Needless to say that completely defeated the point of using a laptop, cause the nvidia chip wipes out my battery in 1 hr.